


Reconstruction

by Kale12



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Coping Mechanisms, F/M, HEA, I am stymied by my inability to just write smut, Post-War, this was just supposed to be trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kale12/pseuds/Kale12
Summary: Hermione copes. Harry waits. Magic is patient and kind.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Others (briefly)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 121





	Reconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I just wanted to write a piece of trash about Hermione sleeping with a bunch of wizards before settling down with her OTP. It was going to be smutty and pointless and instead it turns out I'm just as pretentious as I swore I'd never be, and I churned out this nonsense instead. So the basic premise still applies? Just with prettier words.

* * *

He catches Hermione for the first time in the greenhouse, Terry Boot sucking on her right tit as he twists her hair in his left hand. Their robes are long gone, her shirt is pushed down past her shoulders, and her eyes are shut. 

At first Harry is angry. Angry that they would take such a risk, that Terry couldn’t even be bothered to put up a notice-me-not before taking his pleasure. 

He is also angry that she doesn’t notice him in the doorway, that her eyes don’t turn to him the way they usually do when she senses his presence. 

He is more angry about Terry’s fingers in her curls than about his mouth on her breast. 

He still waits and watches as he presses her up against the glass of the greenhouse, holding her by hips as he thrusts into her gently. Terry does not last long, but he at least manages to hold off until she comes. 

It is Hermione who casts the _scourgify_ , who restores everything back to careful order.

He does not wait to see if she kisses Terry goodbye. 

* * *

She seems perfectly normal at dinner, chatting as usual about their assignments, about the upcoming elections, about their classmates, but never about Terry. She doesn’t even look over to the Ravenclaw table. 

“Harry?” she asks sweetly. “Are you quite alright?”

Her eyes are bright and her mouth is lush and lovely. Not for the first time, he wonders what she would taste like, and why he hasn’t ever tried. 

“Yes,” he says. Why does his voice sound so hoarse? “I’m fine.”

That night he casts a silencing charm, and wraps his hand around his cock, wishing it were her lips. 

* * *

She seems sad sometimes, but they’ve all been like that since the war. The older ones, especially, the ones who lived through the shadows and the pain and the smoke and the blood. Sometimes a black mood whips through them all. Some fight, some fly, some fuck. Anything to leave the panic behind. To convince themselves that they’re still alive, that they deserve to be. 

Hermione is quiet when she’s sad. She curls up in the armchair and stares into the fire and Harry feels helpless and full of rage, the way he used to in the tent, listening to her cry. 

* * *

He stumbles upon her and Ron, literally. He turns a corner as they step out of a neatly hidden alcove, and Harry is not unfamiliar with what Ron looks like after a snog. Hermione looks cool and unmussed _hello, Harry, are you done with patrol?_ though her dark lipstick on the corner of Ron’s mouth gives her away. 

He does not trust himself to speak until Ron has left, grinning sheepishly, and he is walking back with Hermione to the Heads’ suite. 

“I thought you - you and him- I thought it was done?” he asks, not wanting the answer, but needing it all the same. 

“It is,” she answers, in that same unflappable tone, and it takes all he has not to grab her and smudge up her perfect mouth. 

“What was that, then?” he demands, baffled. It is nights like these, torches burning in stone hallways, that he is hit with the absurdity that he lives in an honest-to-goodness castle. A drafty castle, at that. 

She only sighs and steps past the swinging portrait. “Just something to do, Harry. While we wait.” 

Three weeks later, Ron is sitting by Luna across the great hall, and Hermione is smiling as she waves back at them. 

“Aren’t you upset?” he asks. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how Ron could have her and not keep her. But Hermione seems happy, and that’s the only thing that matters. Sometimes he thinks that will always be the only thing that matters. 

* * *

He watches her on the map. It is wrong of him, he knows it. But doing the right thing feels harder than it used to. 

For example: he sits too close. For example: he grabs her hand when they’re late to class, as though to pull her along. Sometimes when they have plenty of time. For example: he wants desperately to be inside her, to feel her warm, wet heat around him. 

There are other girls who would let him, he knows that. Pretty girls. But he seems hardwired for implacability. He’s a Potter, after all. Stubborn pricks, the lot of them. 

And so he traces her name on the map. Midnight at the astronomy tower. With Theo Nott.

He would like to say that doesn’t pull out his invisibility cloak. He would like to say that he doesn’t cast a silencing charm on himself as he walks up the stairs. He would like to say he doesn’t watch Theo sink to his knees in front of her, and kiss the insides of her thighs before working his way to her center. He would like to say he doesn’t stay to watch her fall apart.

* * *

“Do you still want to be an auror, Harry?”

It is unseasonably lovely this late in the fall, sunny and crisp and impossible to resist lying in the grass outside. He has gathered a year’s worth of courage to lay his head on her lap; the feel of her fingers through his hair is ample reward. 

“No,” he says, too drowsy and content to dissemble. This is all he wants. The sun and her softness and sounds of the lake hitting the shore. “I’m too tired to fight anymore, Mione.”

“Then you shan’t,” she says, tracing her nails across his scalp. 

This is enough. This can be enough. What if she never touched him again?

* * *

There are still wings of the castle that haven’t finished repairs. There are scorch marks in odd places. There are scars everywhere they look, skin and stone alike. 

There are days he doesn’t get out of bed. Sometimes she crawls in behind him, wrapping around him as if she could shield him from the rest of the world. He knows she does. 

* * *

Draco fucks her from behind, pushing her against the bookshelves, reaching under her blouse to tug her breasts free. He presses a thumb past her lips and she sucks obediently. 

Something about this feels inevitable. Hermione in the restricted section, clutching the shelves, still mindful of her precious books. Her little gasps make Harry want to die. 

This time he stays to watch as Draco kisses her goodnight, before heading towards the dungeons. 

Harry walks Hermione back himself, unseen and unheard. 

* * *

They start rebuilding the east wing, alongside the elves and wizarding masons. There is labor both physical and magical, and they welcome it. 

In the right light, Harry can see the network of magics holding the new wall together - a strange mix of new and old. Fierce, spiky reds locked in place with solid gold, shimmers of blues and purples, splotches of emerald. It is discordant and beautiful and breathtaking. He reaches for Hermione’s hand - she sees it, too, and smiles. 

* * *

When he flies, nothing can touch him. He is free and in control, and his blood sings as the air rushes past him. Up here, there is the promise that all will be well. There is only the warmth of the sunshine to burn away his rage, the rustle of the wind through the treetops to brush away his fears. 

Below a figure waits, curly head bent over parchment. A familiar, steady presence, as constant as the sun and air. 

He does not stifle his impulse to swoop down in front of her, or to stare openly when she looks up at him with laughing eyes and a mock scold for scattered papers and reckless flying. Same as always. Always the same. Until…

She’s still laughing when he presses his mouth to hers, feet not yet firmly on the ground. 

“No one else,” he says solemnly. A promise, a question.

“No one else,” she agrees, and seals it with another kiss. 

* * *

That night, he touches her gently. She does not ask it, but for her, he has patience in abundance. Her mouth is sweet and her skin is fragrant and she is still laughing, and the miracle of it makes his magic dance under the surface of his skin. He nips at her jaw, peppers small kisses across her chest, and licks his way down her torso. Her hand around his cock is a revelation. 

He slides into her, deep, deep until he can’t tell where he ends and where she begins, and for a moment he is perfectly still. He squeezes her to him, folding her into his chest and trying his damndest to make contact with every single available inch of her. He wants to devour her, wants to bind her to him in every way, wants to keep her forever _mine please only mine_. 

He moves oh so slowly, intense and controlled and deliberate, each thrust sliding his slick body past hers, never once losing contact. Her moans are so soft, and he can’t tell if her cheeks are damp with sweat or tears or both. He fucks her for hours (minutes? days?), face buried in the crook of her neck as he continues his steady, punishing rhythm. He kisses her as she comes undone, swallowing her up, holding his body tense so she can ride out her pleasure. When he drives into her faster, hips pinned to the mattress, it takes him no time at all to surrender; she kisses him back. 

* * *

There is still rage. There are still scars and nightmares and black cloud days. There are moments when he still wonders whether it was worth coming back. 

But there are also plans, and soft sighs, and bone-melting kisses, and promises - so many promises. 

And laughter and magic and 

* * *


End file.
